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jack_bagley
Reviews
Dear Brigitte (1965)
Read the book
Read the book, "Erasmus With Freckles," and see how it compares to the movie, "Dear Brigitte." While I enjoy anything with James Stewart and have been a Bill Mumy fan for most of my life, I can honestly say this is one time when the book shines better than the film. I have no problem with the performances in the movie, mark you ... I merely don't like it when screenwriters take a good book and make a movie out of it that is very little like the original. The family is bigger and somewhat goofier ... and the boat (and the Leaf's neighbors) play a much larger role. I couldn't find Ed Wynn's character anywhere in the novel. Seems a shame to ruin such a good novel by turning it into this movie -- the movie's fine, it's just not the story originally told.
Scott of the Antarctic (1948)
A Great Film -- Flawed, But Great
Sir John Mills is the quintessential Scott -- he even looks like the explorer in this film. The rest of the cast (Wilson, Evans, Oates, and Bowers especially) are also lookalike actors, similar to what was done in "Titanic" with the historic figures. Such movies have more "realism" to them if the actors resemble the characters they portray.
The movie is flawed in that it does not present what actually happened to Scott and his party all the way through, and does "hero-ize" the explorer and his polar party members more than they deserve. The death of Evans, for instance, is done far differently than what actually occurred, but has a true cinematic heroism to it. Evans did not die in Scott's arms, in the snow, as depicted -- he actually fell into a coma and died in the tent that night. And there is a bit of a fumble with Oates' dramatic last words, but only a slight one.
Scott as hero is evident in this film, and even though recent developments have reduced his stature in the eyes of the world, he should still be viewed for what he was -- a true explorer, alongside Shackleton (who does not get nearly enough of the credit he deserves), Amundsen, Peary, etc. Sure, they had their moments of being total jerks -- but don't we all?
For the last eighteen years, I have used this film in my middle-school classroom as a teaching tool during a unit on Antarctica. The story of the race between Scott and Amundsen is a classic tale and deserves to be told. There are probably much more useful films that students can see about the event, but for sheer beauty (yes, I know it was shot mostly in Greenland, but some scenes were indeed filmed down south) you cannot beat Scott of the Antarctic.